Eight people have been indicted since December.

They had "swindled" temporary employment agencies and practiced partial unemployment fraud using "bogus employees and bogus companies".

The damage is estimated at one million euros. 

Eight people have been indicted in the Ardennes since December for having "swindled" temporary employment agencies and practiced short-time work fraud using "bogus employees and bogus companies", for the loss of around a million euro, the judicial police announced on Monday.

Among these people, mainly between 45 and 50 years old and "involved to varying degrees" in this "organized gang scam", is the alleged "brain" of the network, "already known for acts of fraud", told AFP the divisional commissioner Jean-Michel Bolusset, director of the regional judicial police service (SRPJ) of Reims.

Complaints filed by a dozen companies

The PJ was seized in June 2020 by the prosecutor's office of Charleville-Mézières, after complaints from two temporary employment agencies, for facts dating "for some to 2018-2019".

The crooks "embezzled the money of the agencies (...) through bogus temporary workers and companies whose company name was created from scratch or usurped. The agencies paid temporary workers who do not exist, for the account companies that have never employed them, "summarized Jean-Michel Bolusset.

Complaints have been lodged by a dozen companies "all over France, and centralized in the Ardennes because it is there that the bogus companies" were located "supposed to hire these temporary workers, generally for public works sites.

While working on the destination bank accounts, the investigators realized "that money was passing through the same accounts, not coming from these scams, but from short-time working", therefore from the sums "paid by the public bodies, "said Jean-Michel Bolusset.

The damage estimated at one million euros

From the spring of 2020, following the aid measures for businesses announced by the State to deal with the health crisis linked to Covid-19, "the same crooks adapted to the context (...) and practiced the partial unemployment scam, "sometimes using" the same bogus employees and companies, "he detailed.

In total, the damage is estimated at one million euros, of which "about two thirds" related to fraud in partial unemployment.

Of the eight people indicted between late December and mid-January, four were remanded in custody.

The other four are placed under judicial control.